Three NHS employees who earned £412,000 by creating fake Covid-19 vaccination records, with one employee confirmed to be rapper Chin0, have been sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison. Hakeem Walters, 29, Rokibul Islam, 31, and Muhammed Ahmed, 27, carried out the scam while working as administrators at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford. They created false vaccination entries for 847 people so they could avoid lockdown restrictions and travel abroad, Southwark Crown Court was told.

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Prosecutor Kathryn Drummond said: “They ultimately make profits at the expense of the wider public at a time of national crisis, namely the Covid pandemic.

“Each of them held a position of trust at the relevant time as an employee within the NHS. They falsified 1,648 vaccine records relating to 847 individuals. They did so for profit. That enabled those 847 people to enjoy additional freedom in times of lockdown, freedoms reserved for those vaccinated against Covid-19.”

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The men charged £250 for each fake vaccination record, with the court hearing that Islam had access to the National Immunisation Vaccination System (NIVS).

“Mr Islam sold his confidential login details to Mr Ahmed for £1,000,” Ms Drummond said. She explained that Islam began as a Band 3 administrator and clerical bank worker for the vaccine rollout in June 2021. “Every single vaccine record associated with his login was false. He began his work in the NHS at a time of crisis. He obtained wide access. He sold wider access for one thousand pounds. He never created any true or honest vaccination,” she said.

Once those entries were made, the NHS Covid-19 App showed that people were fully vaccinated. “That would enable them to travel, attend certain venues, apply for work, jobs that had restrictions in place,” Ms Drummond added.

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Judge Sally-Ann Hales, sentencing, said: “Between August 17 and December 13 2021, you conspired to hack the NHS computer system to create false Covid vaccination records. You did so to make a financial gain for yourselves.

“The evidence indicates that these conspiracies involved more people than just you three. These are serious offences committed during the pandemic... the risk to public health is self-evident, and the harm that may have resulted is also self-evident. The harm was not to any individual victim, or at least none that can be identified. The damage occasioned is to the wider public.”

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She told Walters: “You abused your position of trust over a number of months. You did so in a sophisticated way, taking steps to conceal what you were doing. It is said that you were not motivated by financial gain but by genuine anti-fact beliefs."

She concluded: “These offences are so serious that only immediate custodial sentences are appropriate. Four years on it is too easy to forget how important the vaccine scheme was in preventing deaths and protecting vulnerable members of the public. People no different from your parents who all have health issues.”

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Walters and Ahmed were jailed for four years and four months, while Islam received one year and seven months. Islam, of Ettrick Street, Tower Hamlets, Walters, of Brooke Road, Hackney, and Ahmed, of Courtland Avenue, Ilford, East London, all admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to cause a computer to perform a function with intent.